Torquatus' Statement of the Epicurean View Of The Ultimate Good In "On Ends"

I have completed a transcription of the Reid translation over to the forum, and I am going to feature it instead of the Rackham version in the "Core Texts" links. Here it is: Cicero's "Torquatus" Presentation of Epicurean Ethics - from "On Ends"

All comments on the differences between this and Rackham are welcome so if you have any please post.

I think I am now repeating myself but every time I read this paragraph I come back to it wondering exactly what is going on. So now I can wonder about the Reid version:

Quote

[39] But actually at Athens, as my father used to tell me, when he wittily and humorously ridiculed the Stoics, there is in the Ceramicus a statue of Chrysippus, sitting with his hand extended, which hand indicates that he was fond of the following little argument: Does your hand, being in its present condition, feel the lack of anything at all? Certainly of nothing. But if pleasure were the supreme good, it would feel a lack. I agree. Pleasure then is not the supreme good. My father used to say that even a statue would not talk in that way, if it had power of speech. The inference is shrewd enough as against the Cyrenaics, but does not touch Epicurus. For if the only pleasure were that which, as it were, tickles the senses, if I may say so, and attended by sweetness overows them and insinuates itself into them, neither the hand nor any other member would be able to rest satised with the absence of pain apart from a joyous activity of pleasure. But if it is the highest pleasure, as Epicurus believes, to be in no pain, then the rst admission, that the hand in its then existing condition felt no lack, was properly made to you, Chrysippus, but the second improperly, I mean that it would have felt a lack had pleasure been the supreme good. It would certainly feel no lack, and on this ground, that anything which is cut off from the state of pain is in the state of pleasure.

I am all in favor of wittily ridiculing the Stoics, but am I the only one who finds Chrysippus' witticism hard to follow?

Is it necessary to feel a lack of it (when it is absent) in order to identify something as the supreme good?

Or maybe there's some entirely different point.

I certainly think I understand the issue on how the Cyreniac position differs from Epicurus, in that the Cyreniacs considered only "active/ joy/delight" to be pleasure, while Epicurus' definition of pleasure is more wide so as to include any feeling which is not pain, but it's just not clear to me that it is obvious that we would feel the lack of the supreme good if it is missing.

The unstated premise must be something about the supreme good must be present and available at all times or else it is missed? (And maybe that's reference back to the Platonic continuity issue that led Epicurus to his "continuous pleasure" statement.)

But regardless of that the Epicureans must have thought this illustration was helpful and important, and I think in order for us to see it so we need to articulate what exactly is going on.

Quote from JJElbert

Of course the shift of the soul from the members or the breast to the brain simply shifts the problem. Does the brain feel the lack of the Supreme good?

Unfortunately I agree with that comment. I think in order to really understand the argument there's something about "feeling the lack" that connects "the supreme good" in a way that doesn't seem obvious (at least to me).

More to the point, I think I can come up with an elaborate explanation of it (see above) but since we are going to be talking about this to people who are new to Epicurus and philosophy in general, we need a clear and direct way of explaining what is going on here.

At this moment I think I would try to link this to the discussion with Philia as an example of trying to "measure pleasure by reason" and coming to a "reasoned understanding of pleasure" in order to dig out why the illustration seems (again, to me) so unsatisfying.

Part of the problem may be that this is an argument from Chrysippus, who has a Stoic was an arch-proponent of logic over

feeling, trying to make a ham-handed logic-based point about pleasure (which he detests as a feeling that distracts from virtue).

Post

RE: An Epicurean Understanding of Pleasure

1 - yes please let us know if you come up with variations/improvements of the jelly bean jar analogy. I am sure there are much better ones!

2

[…]

Absolutely I agree with that, and I think most people at first glance see it that way too. That's "instinctively" the right approach, IMO. In fact I fluctuate on how much I really accept the opposite view myself. In my (admittedly small) mind, the only reason that the "subtractive" model "works" mentally is because you know that there are only two…

Cassius

October 5, 2021 at 1:20 PM

It's probably a significant part of the issue that pleasure (as a feeling) can never really be captured by a "logic" argument.

And of course in discussing THAT issue, this from "Torquatus" shouldn't be far from our minds as a huge red flag about the attempt to bridge logic and feeling, as Epicurus himself apparently warned against it:

[31] There are however some of our own school, who want to state these principles with greater refinement, and who say that it is not enough to leave the question of good or evil to the decision of sense, but that thought and reasoning also enable us to understand both that pleasure in itself is matter for desire and that pain is in itself matter for aversion. So they say that there lies in our minds a kind of natural and inbred conception leading us to feel that the one thing is t for us to seek, the other to reject. Others again, with whom I agree, finding that many arguments are alleged by philosophers to prove that pleasure is not to be reckoned among things good nor pain among things evil, judge that we ought not to be too condent about our case, and think that we should lead proof and argue carefully and carry on the debate about pleasure and pain by using the most elaborate reasonings.

Quote from Cassius

who say that it is not enough to leave the question of good or evil to the decision of sense

Quote from Cassius

Others again, with whom I agree, finding that many arguments are alleged by philosophers to prove that pleasure is not to be reckoned among things good nor pain among things evil, judge that we ought not to be too condent about our case, and think that we should lead proof and argue carefully and carry on the debate about pleasure and pain by using the most elaborate reasonings.

I can almost see Epicurus gasping "OMG!!! " if he could know that some in his own school were arguing that. Though I doubt he would have restrained his response to an expression of exasperation. Someone(s) would have had a lot of explaining to do to Epicurus as to how they managed to fall so far from the prototype. For anyone who didn't get the message after he explained it to them in person, we'd probably have some good texts on excommunication if he could have lived to write about that kind of thing.

Unfortunately this section of DeWitt does not seek to explain the "witticism" -- but does include some gratifying slams at Chrysippus and ultimately labels logicians like him as "intellectual eunuchs"

Maybe we can find some articles discussing this, because the statue or something like still exists, correct?